Enigmatic Machines
by Souptastick
Summary: This will be more focused on the religious aspects of the Vex (Black Garden'esque). The lore is only canon up to the Osiris expansion. There will be a bit of romance, sprinkled in. Enjoy!


_Sadly, I quit playing Destiny after being disappointed with the Osiris expansion. This story is based up to that timeline. Unfortunately, I have not kept up with the series and am unsure what has changed since._

_This is my first attempt to get back into writing, after a long hiatus. _

* * *

Massive jets of hydrogen spewed from the sun. This close, you could do nothing but stare in awe at the immense furnace, forever churning. On Earth, it appeared as nothing more than a yellowish disc in the sky: benevolent, ever glowing.

Her helmet's visor darkened in response to a newly formed flare shooting from the swirling layer of almost inconceivable pressures.

This was Mercury. This was the birthplace of the Sunbreakers. This was, also, one of the first planets the Vex conquered for structures, which bathed under the light of the sun, glistened all around her.

"Once Ikora Ray sat at the feet of Orsiris…now she deems herself better…"

She rolled her eyes. Brother Vance was their local contact on this sweltering ball of rock. The best word to describe that man was_ irritating_.

Many guardians had come in response to Ikora's pleas to locate her former teacher. Osiris had been found, but much was still left to clean up. A blue sheen flickered in the distance; yet another guardian off to the Infinite Forest.

Steps neared her from the entrance to the tower. While this ledge was not unknown, is was _uncommon_ to come across another. She frequented this when she needed to get away. It was her solace.

A warlock walked past her, none the wiser to her sitting form propped up against the wall. She kept her arm draped over a bent knee, cautiously looking over the stranger. His armband emanated a dim, blue hologram. The gold of his robe reflected in the immense sunlight.

_This was a champion of the Trials of Osiris_.

She caught a glimpse of the hand cannon, Sunshot, hooked to his utility belt. Her eyes widened inside her helmet. This was why she never bothered with the Crucible, anymore. He was the usual type of asshole that would kill her eight times in a row and never have to reload.

_He was making her nervous_.

He stood there, his hands clasped behind his back, staring out over the metallic landscape. She glanced towards the entrance, debating if she could be quiet enough to sneak head swung back towards him.

_His visor was pointing down at her._

A few seconds passed before she quickly scrambled to her feet, swiping her assault rifle off the ground and hurrying inside. She had had her fill of Mercury, anyway…

* * *

"Guardian, I'd like a word with you."

Zavala was her supervisor."Mentor" was the word the others would use to describe one of the Vanguard, but she never allowed herself to become disillusioned with false pretenses. Whenever he asked for her, it always involved something unpleasant, with either little to no pay.

"What is it now?" She frowned, letting her arms drop to the side as she waited for whatever undesirable news was about to unfold.

Zavala sighed. Leonora had been one of the many Titans to arrive after the fall of the Iron Lords. Her red hair, sky blue eyes, and overall features bore such a striking resemblance to Lady Jolder that people could not help but to assume that she was the same woman. With the loss of such a hero still pulling on the heartstrings of many, namely Saladin, she seemed to have represented what they hoped for.

However, Leonora was everything Lady Jolder was **_not_**. He watched as she stared at the ends of her braided hair, eventually picking out a piece of debris and tossing it to the side. Her dedication to what the guardians represented was trivial, at best. Her only _slight_ resemblance to the previous Titan was her reckless inability to stop committing suicide as a fighting mechanic.

Lord Shaxx had taken a liking to the girl. In retrospect, that was something they should have stepped in to moderate. Shaxx had forced her to participate in so many Crucible matches that, eventually, she ended up in the medical ward after her ghost malfunctioned trying to revive her for the ninety-seventh time, _in one day_.

"Relax! She's a Titan! She can take a few more."

To make matters worse, she had earned the nickname "Leo Triple 9", by none other than Cayde.

Her infamy with death and failures had taken on a life of its own, and she soon found herself being turned down by almost every fireteam. He watched her pride break, until all that was left was the cynical shell that stood before him; already beaten and merely going through the motions.

He turned, reaching for the mission tablet on the table and handing it to her.

"Devrim Kay has noticed growing activity with the Fallen, in what appears to be an isolated area of the forests, near the Sludge. We'd like you to check it out, find out what they are up to."

He slid the mission tablet into her hands, watching as her eyes glanced over the illuminated screen.

"We will send all the details to your ship's command console. Report what you find, Guardian, and good luck."

Leonora glanced up, nodding her head, then turned, heading towards the docks.

_I have no idea why he bothers..._

She walked past stacks of crates, dodging in and out of the bustling traffic of the city. The rebuilding efforts after the Red War were still heavily underway, creating constant congestion at almost every turn. The original tower, where the Speaker had held his meditations with the Traveler, had been destroyed, and the Vanguard was forced to relocate to a section of the city's surrounding wall.

"Hey, look! It's Leo Triple 9!" She glanced to the left, hearing the loud snickers of a few hunters. One of them grabbed the shoulder of another. "Be careful now. She might walk over here with a grenade and blow herself up. You just got those white gloves."

Laughter roared and her cheeks turned beat red. She began to sprint to docks, doing her best to hide the antagonizing embarrassment that was about to bubble over. She hurried down the ramp, taking a quick glance from behind to make sure she wasn't being followed by the merry band of immature assholes.

**_oomph_**

She felt herself crash into someone else, stumbling over to the side against the wall.

"Owe, Leo! What the hell are you doing?!"

It was Nadia, her only friend, as well as the only guardian that would willingly take her along on any missions.

_Missions was a liberal term; most anything she dragged her into was an unsanctioned clusterfuck, which almost always ended up with their asses getting chewed out in Zavala's office._

Leo took a deep breath, slowly releasing it. She glanced over her shoulder, again.

"Sorry, I guess I wasn't paying attention…"

Nadia raised an eyebrow, peeking around her friend and up the long corridor. She shook her head, reaching out to squeeze Leo's arm.

"Hey, don't let them get to you. You know hunters are idiots."

Leo turned back, biting on the inside of her cheek. "Yeah, I know"

Nadia lowered her arm. Leo was, fundamentally, a sweet girl. Her overprotective nature caused herself many deaths that any other guardian, with half a brain, would have avoided. No one cared, no one valued the sincere effort. She was openly mocked in public, and even worse in private.

A few minutes later they were side by side, heading towards the main docking platform, an odd silence falling between the two. They rounded a corner and Leo's ship popped into view.

"So what is it Nadia? What bullshit are you planning to drag me into this time."

Nadia kept an emotionless expression on her face. Her blue skin hid any tell-tale signs of laugh lines, which helped her maintain an effective poker face during interactions; it was beneficial, to say the least. However, in the essence of saving time, she decided to cut to the chase.

"Vault of Glass."

Leo's eyes widened and she grabbed Nadia's arm, pulling her to the side into a secluded nook off the main walkway. Her eyes nervously glanced around before focusing on the Awoken's face.

"Are you _crazy_? You know they'll fry our asses if they catch us in there." She spoke in a hushed tone.

"**_If_** they catch us. No one is looking at Venus, anymore. With the Infinite Forest on Mercury, and the Leviathan still fluttering about near Nessus, the last thing _anyone_ is thinking about is an old, defunct Vex construct."

Nadia watched as Leo nervously ran her fingers over the scar on her right cheek. She knew the mark bothered her friend, but she was too insecure to ever admit it. It was something she touched whenever that same insecurity would bleed over into other situations.

"Are you sure? Zavala put me on probation for the last 'adventure' we went on."

Nadia's eyes narrowed and she leaned forward. "Since when have you ever given a shit about what the Vanguard does or does not approve of?"

Leo scoffed, turning her gaze towards where her ship was parked. While she did not detest Zavala, or the Vanguard, she preferred to be left alone. Every time she was caught, he would assign her remedial jobs as a means of atonement. The more he called on her to help with humiliating grunt work, the longer people remembered her as a failure for a Titan. She sighed, looking back at Nadia.

"**Fine**. But if we get caught again, I'm selling you out."

A huge grin spread across Nadia's face, as she tucked the longer side of her jet back hair behind her ear. "Deal."

* * *

Her shotgun discharged, blowing the head off a Vex. She cocked her weapon to reload the chamber, aiming for its stomach; white fluid splattered all over the front of her armor and visor. She tripped, falling backwards while desperately attempting to wipe it off.

Nadia laughed, stepping ahead of her. A fiery blade materialized in her hands. She jumped, aiming at the Minotaur rushing towards them.

"When did you get so prissy?!"

Leo ran her hands across the stone floor, leaving streaks of radiolarian fluid behind. She made a disgusted noise.

"Since I had to stand next to Asher for more than five minutes!"

Nadia laughed again, finally landing back on the ground; the golden blade disappearing into thin air. She casually walked to one of the twitching Vex, kneeling next to the dying machine. Her gloved hand reached out, sliding her fingers along the abdomen and across the clear globe that held its living essence, proper.

"That's what happens when you're a careless, old fool." She pushed her long overcoat back, exposing a bent knee while she grasped at a small dagger in between her boot and pants. Slowly, she slid the weapon in between the crystal globe and surrounding metallic abdomen. An inhuman, mechanical scream tore from the dying machine, and the red light faded as Nadia popped its life force from the useless husk.

The white radiolaria glowed with an eerie intensity, almost pulsating at a slow speed. Leo shivered.

"I hate these things. Of all the places you drag me, it's always crawling with the fucking Vex."

Nadia placed the globe in her satchel, shifting it so the contents fell along her back. "Next time, I'll let you bring your teddy bear along to protect you from the 'scary robots'." She snickered.

Leo sneered at her friend from behind her helmet. Nadia had an unhealthy obsession with the liquid race, even going as far as to set up a hidden lab within an abandoned attic above her room in the City. What she did with her "samples" was unknown, and honestly, Leo didn't _want_ to know.

She leaned against one of the half metal and stone obelisks, patiently waiting for Nadia to finish her mutilation of the dead machines. Glancing around, she took in the vastness of the cavern they stood in, admiring the bizarre architecture that remained.

"Do you think Praedyth still exists…somewhere?"

Nadia stopped dead in her tracks, quickly swiveling her torso around to face the Titan. "Where did you hear that name?" Furrowed eyebrows were hidden behind her helmet, but her body language gave away the intensity of her question.

Leo kept her gaze on the massive rock cliff, partially reformed into the, all too familiar, linear structures of the Vex. "I see a lot of mission tablets. Sometimes, I see a little bit of extra data; sometimes, a lot." She turned her head towards Nadia, lifting her helmet. "And sometimes, people forget to re-encrypt restricted information." She gave her friend a wink before pulling her helmet back down.

Nadia laughed while she slid her knife back into the inside of her boot. "And, even rarer yet, sometimes I think you might, actually, be a warlock."

Echoes of laughter resonated throughout the cavern, and the two women began making their way further into the partially abandoned ruins. It was always difficult to grasp whether the Vex truly were gone from a location, or if they merely shifted themselves into a different timeline.

"Why are we looking for fluid here? Why not go to Nessus, even Io?" Leo disliked the Vex, in general. Actively wandering around in one of their ruins was less than ideal, and she was confused as to why they could not simply farm the alien machines on the surface.

The light on Nadia's helmet switched on, as she ducked to scope out a small passage to the right, attempting to see if there was a larger room down the small shaft. "What I am searching for is specific; it is tied to two separate religious orders."

Leo lifted her helm, showing a raised eyebrow and mouth distorted in confusion. "When the fuck does a machine have a religion?"

"By the Light, you Titans are incredibly thick." She chose to ignore answering her friend and proceeded to crawl forward into the tiny shaft. Leo bit her lip, glancing around the darkened stone and metal surroundings before following her friend. Her flashlight turned on.

"You have a big ass."

Nadia scoffed.

Eventually, they found themselves in a large, enclosed chamber. Streams of white, radiolarian fluid seeped in from cracks in the stone, pooling towards the far end of the room. One of the monolith statues of the Vex rose from the white pool, while a prostrating goblin knelt before it, arms spread in worship. Leo shuttered, aiming her assault rifle.

"Wait." A gloved hand grabbed her gun, lifting it up. Leo looked at Nadia, her own hands still gripping her weapon.

"I need to study this, first, before you start blowing everything up." A few awkward seconds of silence passed, the two guardians staring at each other. Leo finally dropped her gun to the side, swinging it over one of the large pauldrons of her armor. Nadia stepped forward, heading towards the goblin.

"This shouldn't be here. The Vault was the seat of their technological faction. They rejected any religious zealots, preferring their own means towards controlling all time streams."

She kept a wide berth, grabbing her hand cannon just in case. The side of the goblin came into view, followed by its face. The machine kept its position, continuing to kneel in reverence. She moved closer, leaning in enough to see that the fluid in its "juice box" was actively swirling about.

"It knows we're here." She glanced up at the statue. "But it doesn't attack."

Leo casually walked up to her friend, her gun still draped over her shoulder. She looked down at the machine. Red eyes flickered, and she jumped back, aiming her gun at it.

_It kept kneeling, the red eyes staring at the statue._

"Okay, I'm officially creeped out. What is it _doing_?" She was looking at it through her scope.

Nadia put her hand cannon back in the holster positioned across her lower back. "I'm…I'm not sure. Ever since Atheon was destroyed, this site was mostly abandoned by the Vex. Or, at least, it was abandoned in our time line." She glanced around the large chamber, the metallic engravings on her white armor reflecting the glow of the fluid. "However, this doesn't belong, regardless."

Leo lowered her gun, her arms tiring from holding it up for so long. "Perhaps this is a dissident?"

"That would be incredible." Nadia leaned forward, again, getting an even closer look at the goblin. It's markings and designs were that of the local machines, and not of the Vex that were found in the Black Garden, years ago. Red eyes continued to stare forward, and she continued. "I have never understood what they hoped to achieve. I was not present during the destruction of the Minds of the Black Garden, nor did I observe its black, amorphous, heart. I do know that this statue may, very likely, be a Vex, which makes the scene before us even more fascinating."

Leo's ghost appeared, hovering over the goblin. It's eye focusing in and out. "Remember what we found on Nessus? Captain Jacobson?" It swiveled its eye towards Nadia, awaiting a response.

Nadia's ghost, suddenly, appeared, spinning its four-pronged body along the axis of its eye. "What about it?"

"The Vex were attempting to understand empathy. What if…what if some of them no longer want an existence as a machine..." Leo's ghost floated over to the steam of mind fluid on the floor. "…or a liquid."

"So they're praying, hoping to magically be granted an organic body?" Leo's response came off as cynical, which eluded to her overall feelings of the current situation. She hooked her rifle in the clasp in between her pauldrons and folded her arms across her chest, tilting her head towards her ghost.

"Who knows." It followed the motion of Nadia's ghost, spinning around on its own axis. It turned, floating over to Nadia. "I agree with Leo, let's leave. This place makes me uncomfortable."

Nadia laughed, pushing Leo's ghost to the side. "Hal, you're just as much of a pansy as your guardian." The ball's eye grew in intensity, before it quickly flew over to Leo, disappearing and reattaching itself into her suit's automated system.

Nadia's ghost chuckled with a distorted female octave, continuing to remain in its physical form next to its guardian.

_She is going to get herself killed by these things, one day._

Leo frowned inside her helmet. Hal had a good point, and one she had voiced to Nadia some time ago. Nothing could dissuade the Warlock from her obsession, though. Leo had stumbled across a detailed account of the final assault against the Vault of Glass, reading on what happened to the original three members that first attempted to infiltrate this place. The Vex were as cruel as they were dangerous, and Nadia seemed to always ignore the real threat that loomed over places such as this. There was a reason why the Vanguard treated this site as forbidden.

_Ever since she met Osiris, she has been going nuts about the Vex._

Leo rolled her eyes. Nadia was not only infatuated with that old man, she was in love. Leo cringed to herself, trying to shake the thought out of her head.

"So what are you planning?" Leo waved her hand at the kneeling goblin. "I'm not carrying this thing back to your ship."

Nadia knelt in front of the machine, looking around at its glowing core. "Well, what I need to do is run tests on the mind fluid of this specimen and compare it back to the others from this complex." She reached out, sliding her fingers along the edge of the globe. "It looks like it's in there tight, though."

Suddenly, the Vex's head dropped and red eyes were staring directly at Nadia. She yelped falling back on her rear. Leo immediately reached for her rifle, quickly aiming at the machine. She would only pull the trigger once it made an attack, otherwise she'd never hear the end of "you ruined my research".

The arms twisted first, followed by its wrists. The machine continued to kneel while it moved its metal arms to its core. Nadia watched as the abdominal region enlarged; the white content of the elliptical globe growing even brighter. Suddenly, the juice box fell forward into the metal hands of the Vex. The red eyes slowly dimmed, until nothing remained illuminated in the dead husk.

She slowly moved forward into a crouching position, sliding her hands around the ejected core. She felt the warmness of the internal fluid, actively still swirling around. Her ghost hovered over it, scanning it with its sensors. Its eye widened and it moved right in front of Nadia's visor.

"They…they want to come with us."


End file.
